Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 2, 1998

1998-05-02 04:00:00 PDT BAY AREA -- Knight Ridder, the parent company of the tech-talk gazette known as the San Jose Mercury News, announced this week that it was moving its headquarters from Miami to the Bay Area, because it really really loves the Internet.

In breathless tones, the Mercury portrayed the move as the greatest thing to hit town since Streisand played the South Bay.

A few media analysts were quoted as saying that the move makes perfect sense for a company that likes technology as much as Knight Ridder, especially since they've turned the Mercury into a veritable chat room for Silicon Valley companies.

But I see a larger plot on their part, and not just because the Mercury publishes dubious conspiracy-theory articles like "Dark Alliance," or that it forces prospective employees to take bizarre psychological exams. This isn't about new mediums or the latest fiber-optic breakthroughs.

This is the first great newspaper war of the digital age.

It is hard to comprehend how desperate the Mercury News is to knock off The Chronicle. The Mercury has long suffered from an inferiority complex concerning its hometown, at one time removing San Jose from its banner here in hopes that people in San Francisco might actually buy it. Its Napoleonic view even extended to the news: For years, editors at the paper anxiously awaited updated census figures so they could once and for all proclaim that San Jose was more populous than San Francisco.

The paper will seemingly stop at nothing to hurt its northern competitors, even if it means drumming up a few fictional stories along the way. Just over two years ago, the Mercury News ran a story headlined "S.F. Examiner on Last Legs" in which it cited unnamed sources who said the city's two dailies were days away from shutting down the afternoon rag and jointly running The Chronicle.

The story jangled a lot of nerves at Fifth and Mission and made national news. Too bad it was untrue. Some 730 days later, both papers are still humming along, and The Chronicle not only has greatly expanded its regional coverage, but to the Mercury's chagrin, we operate one of the most active and popular Web sites in the United States.

Lately, the Mercury has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy papers like the Contra Costa Times to compete with our aggressive suburban expansion, and there are rumors that its newspaper shopping binge is not yet complete.

I like to think I have a pretty good understanding of the Mercury/Knight Ridder mind-set since I survived nearly six years there back in the early '80s. Knight Ridder virtually invented corporate journalism -- a model that rewarded newsroom managers for their ability to torture employees. New department heads were sent to company headquarters in Miami for brainwashing and paramilitary training. When a lot of top reporters and editors began to bolt, the paper installed a new "be nice" philosophy -- and then spent years trying to figure out what it meant.

Some time ago, the Mercury decided that its primary mission in life would be to report news snippets and pillow talk from the place called Silicon Valley. This meant that more mainstream news -- murders, elections, coups -- had to fight for space against overhyped technology updates.

So while you can still find national news stories like two Arkansas schoolboys gunning down a bunch of their classmates, you just won't be able to find them on the front page like you can everywhere else.

News of the technological revolution apparently convinced Knight Ridder that it was too far from the action. A spokeswoman said the company felt "out of the loop" in Miami, and decided that it needed to be more than a laptop closer to the new media epicenter -- though not as close as San Jose.

It appears that the allure of San Jose's rose garden failed to impress many of the 65 KR executives moving out from Miami. They are pushing for new quarters closer to Palo Alto.

Some veteran Mercury staffers speculated that the move was really fueled by Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder's desire to get closer to Pebble Beach. This rumor was based on the fact that Ridder, the Mercury's former publisher, could often be seen striding through the paper's newsroom in his plaid golf pants, on his way to his favorite links.

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But I'm not buying it. We're taking the move seriously here at The Chronicle. It's a battle for the hearts, minds, and souls of the Bay Area. Bring on the evil media empire.

We are wired. We are ready. God save the Chron.

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